“I already had drinks with dinner at home this week.”
He justified his abstention in this way, but now Majime’s worry turned to fear.
Majime ordered “stamina udon,” a bowl of noodles and vegetables in hot broth topped with toasted rice cake. The professor ordered a plate of tororo soba, buckwheat noodles topped with creamy grated yam.
After ordering, the professor turned to Majime. “What a fine man you’ve grown into. I certainly appreciate all the trouble you take on my behalf.”
I was an adult when we first met, Majime thought, until he remembered, That’s right, I couldn’t even pour his beer properly. When he had first transferred to the Dictionary Editorial Department, he hadn’t known how to proceed with work or get along with his coworkers. He’d felt as if he’d been blindfolded and sent to grope his way through a labyrinth.
And now all aspects of The Great Passage were under his command. He issued instructions to over fifty college students working on the dictionary part time and finessed almost daily meetings with the advertising and sales staff while busily correcting proofs. He had shown young Miss Kishibe the ropes, as if he were a past master at dictionary editing.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Majime said awkwardly and took a sip of the steaming tea that had just arrived.
Professor Matsumoto was writing on a sample card. He added a question mark. On TV they were doing a special report on “Unexpected Sweating: Exploring the Mysteries of the Autonomic Nervous System.” Among the street interviews with men and women of all ages was an exchange between two high-school girls.
“Sweating all of a sudden, like for no reason?” said one. “Yeah, yeah!”
“It’s like, bamyuru!”
“Yeah, bamyuda!”
Catching this conversation, the professor had lost no time in making a note of the words. He added a question mark as if unsure of what he had heard.
No, thought Majime, the girls weren’t talking about the autonomic nervous system. More likely they randomly made Bermuda into a verb, bamyuru, to express how hot they felt—and this was probably a word they’d made up, used only by them and their friends. No real reason to take note of it. He felt like telling the professor all this, but seeing the look of intense concentration on his face, he let it pass.
“Are we on schedule?” the professor asked, turning to his noodles.
“Yes. The Great Passage should come out right on time next spring.”
“It’s been a long time coming.” The professor scooped up some grated yam with a wooden spoon and smiled. “But you know, the real work starts after a dictionary comes out. To improve its accuracy and precision, we have to keep collecting samples for the revised and expanded edition.”
The biggest Japanese dictionary of all time was the Great Dictionary of Japanese. Twenty-four years after its first publication, a second edition had come out, increasing the number of entry words from 450,000 to half a million—testimony to the editors’ and contributors’ determination to respond to changes in a living language by ceaselessly collecting words and nurturing the growth of the dictionary.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Majime had just bitten off a piece of rice cake, but he nodded as he spoke. The hot, softened rice cake dangling from his lower lip swung like a white tongue and brushed against his chin, burning a little.
Even while the professor was busy eating, his thoughts remained on dictionaries. With a far-off look in his eyes, he said, “Majime, just look at the Oxford English Dictionary or China’s Kangxi Dictionary. Overseas, a university founded by royal charter or some other ruling authority often takes the lead in compiling a dictionary of the national language. In other words, public funds go into the project.”
“And here we are, perpetually underfunded. It’s enough to make you weep.”
“Right. So why do you suppose they use public funds to make dictionaries?”
Majime left off winding his noodles. “I suppose it’s because they see a dictionary as a way to enhance national prestige. Language helps form a sense of national identity, and, to a certain degree, unification and control of language are necessary to bring a nation together.”
“Exactly. Yet look at Japan. We have zero dictionaries compiled under the patronage of any public institution.” The professor rested his chopsticks, leaving half of his soba noodles untouched. “Take the first modern Japanese dictionary, Fumihiko Otsuki’s Sea of Words. Not even that had financial support from the government. Otsuki worked on it his whole life and published it with funds from his own pocket. To this day, every publishing company puts out its own dictionary, and no official bodies are involved.”
Majime wondered if this was the professor’s way of saying, “Apply for government funding. What have you got to lose?” Cautiously, he said, “Government agencies can be somewhat obtuse in their attitude to culture.”
“When I was young, I used to wish we had more generous funding.” The professor folded his hands on the tabletop. “Now I think it was all for the best.”
“What do you mean?”
“If government money were involved, there’s a strong chance they would interfere with the content. And just because national prestige would be on the line, language could well be made a tool of domination, a way of bolstering state legitimacy.”
Until now, caught up in the grind of dictionary compilation, Majime had never stopped to think about the political influence dictionaries might have. “I guess words, and dictionaries, must always exist in the narrow, perilous space between individual and authority, internal freedom and public governance.”
“Yes,” said Professor Matsumoto. “Which is why even if we lack funding, we should take pride in the fact that dictionaries are compiled not by the government but by publishing companies. By private citizens like you and me, plugging away at our jobs. After devoting more than half my life to lexicography, that’s one thing I’m sure of.”
“Professor . . .” Majime was moved by this declaration.
“Words and the human heart that creates them are absolutely free, with no connection to the powers that be. And that’s as it should be. A ship to enable all people to travel freely across the sea of words—we must continue our efforts to make sure The Great Passage is just that.”
The professor spoke simply and quietly, but the passion in his words washed over Majime with the force of breaking waves.
When they had finished their meal and gone back outside, Majime hailed a taxi and all but forced the professor and his briefcase inside. The professor had shown little appetite, and under the circumstances Majime couldn’t allow him to take the train home. He pressed a taxi voucher from the company into the professor’s reluctant hand.
“Good night, sir. Till next time.”
Inside the taxicab, the professor bowed his head apologetically.